


To Grudgingly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

by impossibletruths



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, CMO!Kashaw, Injury, Kashaw Puts Up With A Lot, M/M, Sickfic, Stranded On A Desert Planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 11:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossibletruths/pseuds/impossibletruths
Summary: If you’re going to be stranded planetside and grievously injured, it’s best to have your (very attractive) CMO with you. Even if your CMO is a surly sonuvabitch who may hate your guts. At least you know you’ll survive. Probably.





	To Grudgingly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

**Author's Note:**

> written for critrole rare pair week day 6: alternate universe
> 
> tw for sort of graphic depictions of CPR and general injury/illness

The silver lining is, he knew it was going to be a shitstorm from before they even made planetfall, so at least he can tell Vax  _I told you so._

Though it sort of loses its sting when the first officer is bleeding from his ears and too delirious to appreciate the full irony of the situation. Kash  _really_  hates this crew sometimes.

“You’re a dick,” he says to the half-conscious man slung in a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. Vax groans out a reply, unintelligible and nearly inaudible over the raging windstorm around them, because that’s just the sort of day they’re having. Kash hefts him further up his shoulder––and hell, what has the man been eating? Kashaw’s going to double his rations as soon as they get off this miserable rock; he weighs next to nothing.

“You’re a dick and I hate you,” he continues. The wind roars around them, blowing his hair into his eyes and nearly knocking him over, and it’s only the sheer sides of this narrow mountain crevasse they’re threading that protect them from the deadly storm. “I can’t believe I let you convince me to do this.”

Vax’s head lolls slightly, and he gets heavier, and––  _Shit_. He’s not breathing.

Kashaw hoists Vax off his shoulder and deposits him none-too-gently on the rocky ground. The wind howls overhead, keening like some great beast, and Kash would quite literally rather be anywhere else in the galaxy. He hates Issylria, the whole damn cluster. This is why he swore he’d never come back.

“Vax!” His voice vanishes into the wind as he shakes the first officer and pinches his ear,  _hard_. The man doesn’t stir. “Vax’ildan I swear to whatever god there is––” He shakes the man harder, but there’s still no movement, no breath. He checks his airway––clear––and then his pulse, swearing when he doesn’t find one.

“I hate you,” he says, rising up on his knees to settle his hands over the man’s sternum. “I really, truly hate you.” Each word comes out sharp, in time with his compressions. “You are the worst.”

Then he stops talking all together, counting out compressions in his head, barely wincing when his ribs snap and he finally gets the depth he needs to keep his heart pumping. He’s not losing anyone else to Issylria, he’s not.

CPR is messy business at the best of times, all broken ribs and too much force and the sort of sick fascination of watching someone’s ribcage go from convex to concave. CPR in the middle of nowhere with a deadly storm raging around you when you are the only sentient lifeforms for miles is...

Look, he’s not pleased about it but there’s a moment––around the three hundredth compression––when he’s pretty sure it’s pointless and he should just give up, because if he doesn’t find shelter  _he’s_  going to be dead too, and he can’t save Vax and himself at the same time, but––

But half-familiar panic churns in his gut, something between  _I don’t want to be alone_  and  _I don’t want to lose him_  and that’s a whole can of worms he doesn’t want to go near with a ten foot pole, but it also keeps him huffing and leaned over Vax, elbows locked, pounding into him again, and again, and again.

“Come on,” he pants. “Breathe. Wake up and  _breathe_.”

And maybe there’s something out there answering his prayers, or maybe he’s just a determined enough bastard, or maybe Vax can’t pass up an opportunity to prove him wrong because Kashaw brings his weight down again and Vax coughs out the slightest sigh.

Kash’s fingers are on his neck immediate and––yes, there, faint but steady. The man breathes again. Not conscious, but alive. Kashaw sits back on his heels.

“Thank you.”

He sits there a moment longer watching Vax breathe and not thinking too hard about the overwhelming relief that leaves him a little weak at the knees. Then he forces himself to move; he’s not going to die of exposure right after saving his CO’s life. Carefully––careful, careful, he’s still in terrible shape––he slides his arms beneath Vax’s shoulder and knees and hefts the man up. Still too light, in his professional medical opinion.

Whatever luck has decided to grace him holds, and within fifty yards he finds what he sought in the first place: a break in the rock that leads down into a low-ceilinged cavern. Kash sets Vax back down, checking him over. Still breathing. Pallid, too-hot, ribs snapped, but breathing. That’s good. He can work with breathing.

Kash peels off his outer shirt, setting aside the useless comm––there’ll be no getting through to anybody in this storm, and the transport shuttle is a complete wreck, so they’re stuck until the weather calms––and folds it into a pillow, angling Vax’s head to keep his airway clear.

Only then does he slump back against the rock. The thick, humid air of the cavern raises goosebumps on his arms, and his undershirt does nothing to ward off the chill. He pushes his hair out of his face and does a more detailed sweep of the cave. Low ceiling, loose dirt floor, damp walls, air heavy with the still, stifling smell of underground. It must go deeper, but he can’t see any other tunnel or entrance besides the one they squeezed through. Outside the gale still howls and howls.

“Well,” he tells Vax’s prone form, “guess it’s just you and me now.”

Vax breathes, shallow but steady. Kashaw lets his head fall back against the damp cavern wall.

Nothing to do but wait.

Wait and watch over the absolute idiot in his care. Kash groans and picks himself up, sorting through the handful of things he’d managed to save from the crash and finding their meagre supplies generally lacking. 

An extra flask of water. His broken tricorder. A scarf, for some reason. An extra comm. Four ration packs. The medkit strapped to his belt he refuses to go anywhere without, because he inevitably ends up stranded on a deadly class M planet with an unconscious crewmate.

He hates it when he’s right.

Well, there’s no helping that now. Given what they have, they’ll last maybe three days. Five if they stretch things, but Vax needs food, water, actual medicine, and they don’t have enough of that. Not to mention they’re at least sixty klicks off the landing zone. Poor Ensign... um. That poor ensign.

Vax stirs faintly at his side, and Kash sets aside thoughts of the crash and checks on his patient. That, at least, is familiar.

The first officer is in surprisingly good condition for having survived a crash landing and picked up... whatever he’s got. Internal bruising compounded by some virus Kash can’t diagnose without his tricorder, and can do even less to treat. Also the whole cracked sternum thing. Kashaw winces, almost hopes he doesn’t wake up. That one’s gonna hurt.

“You are so lucky,” he tells Vax, swiping away the trickle of blood dripping down the side of his jaw and scowling at the feverish temperature of his skin.

Vax doesn’t respond.

Rest, Kash decides. He’ll get some rest, keep an eye on Vax, and in a bit––however long  _a bit_  is; the clouds blot out the sky and he has no idea what time of day or night it might be––he’ll try contacting the ship again. Hopefully the storm will have died down enough by then.

He doesn’t hold much hope. He remembers these storms, how long they can rage, as though the heavens themselves were trying to wipe life off the face of the planet. They never should have come.

He settles on the ground next to Vax––to monitor him and  _only_  to monitor him, in case of emergency and all that––and closes his eyes. Between the lulling howl of the wind and the bone-deep exhaustion, he drifts to sleep within minutes.

* * *

A fist to his face wakes him, jolts him out a fuzzy nightmare about being stripped to the bone by razor wind and back to the half-dark of the cavern. Vax thrashes at his side, back bowing a perfect arc as he convulses. 

Kash swears and sits up, shuffles over so he can gently roll the man onto his side as he bends and twists. Seizures mean brain activity, means whatever this is has reached his brain, means––

Honestly, sometimes being a medic really sucks.

The seizure passes quickly, at least. Small mercies. Vax trembles bonelessly on the floor, still unconscious, breathing shallow. Kash checks him over with worried efficiency. Pupils responding, pulse faint but steady, motor functions seemingly alright for the moment. The bleeding has stopped, that’s good. Probably.

Well, it’s either good or really bad and he doesn’t particularly want to consider the other option.

Kash sits back on his heels and stares down at Vax. “Could you once in your life not be overdramatic about something?” he asks. Vax screws up his face, and Kash absentmindedly smoothes out his brow, and then immediately snatches his hand back because there’s no way in hell he’s going soft on him, no matter how life-threatening his illness is.

“You’re the worst,” he says, without much heat. And then, because he’s up anyways, and hungry, he rips into one of the ration packs and feeds first Vax and then himself, then coaxes a little water down the first officer’s throat, and only once he has checked his condition again––no change––does Kash lean back against the wall, one hand on the man’s shoulder, and doze off again.

* * *

He wakes to silence, a stillness so disorienting he forgets, for a moment, where he is. Then he leaps up, nearly bashing his head on the low ceiling, and ducks out of the cavern into the mountain pass, sky clear and silent above him. The winds have stopped.

He hits his comm and it crackles to life.

“CMO to Vox Machina, come in. Is anyone there?”

For a moment static crackles, and then––

“Kashaw?”

He’s never been so glad to hear Shorthalt’s voice. He braces one hand against the rocky side of the mountain pass. “Yeah, yeah, it’s me.”

The comm’s officer dips in and out as the connection stabilizes. “Where are you? What happened? Where’s Vax?”

“We crashed.” Obviously, he almost adds, but he doesn’t know how long he has to get the information across, and–– “Vax is injured. We’re about sixty klicks south of the landing zone, I’d say. In the mountains.”

“Hang on, Zahra’s locking onto your position.”

“Can you get us out of here?”

“Uh.”

Oh, he does  _not_  like the sound of that. “Shorthalt––”

“We can’t beam you out,” he says in a rush. “Something about the atmospheric makeup. We’ll send a transport––”

“And land it  _where_?”

“Yeah. Uh. About that. We need you to travel a day south.”

He can’t even manage inflection. “You what.”

“There’s a potential landing site––”

“ _Potential_ site?”

There’s scuffling on the end of the line, and then Zahra’s beautiful, dulcet voice crackles over the comm.

“It’s the closest location, darling.”

“Zee––”

She doesn’t let him get started, because she knows him well enough not to. “We’ll get someone to evac you, I promise. Can you get there?”

Kash sighs. Nothing else has been easy; why would this be? “I’ll make it work.”

“I knew you could do it.”

“Tell me that when I see you.”

“I will,” she promises. “You should be able to follow the fissure south. It opens on a plateau. We’ll meet you there.”

“With a med evac.”

“With a med evac,” she agrees soothingly.

“Well–– Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Stay safe.”

The line goes dead. Kash spares a moment to press his forehead against the craggy rockface.

Never again.  _Never_  again.

Then he turns around and goes back inside to check on Vax and get him ready to move.

* * *

Two hours and three hypospray boosters later, Vax is by no means conscious but his fever is gone, and there’s a little color in his cheeks. Kash hopes it’ll hold as they pick their way south. He’s not holding his breath.

He feeds him again, binds his ribs with the scarf, slings the man up onto his back, and inches out of the cave. The wind whistles around them, strong but by no means the punishing gale from earlier. Hopefully that’ll hold.

“You’ve had a lot of bad ideas,” he says conversationally as they walk. “This is definitely the worst.”

Vax groans slightly. Kash winces. Now would be a terrible time to wake up. It’d almost be funny, actually, except then Kash would have to deal with him conscious and pissy and liable to hurt himself further, and that would be damn near unbearable for both of them.

“I am never again doing anything with you. Ever. I don’t care how pretty you are.”

That out of the way, Kash shifts him into a slightly more comfortable position, ducks his head, and keeps walking.

* * *

It takes the better part of the day, and most of the night, but they do make the plateau. The crevasse they’ve been following opens out onto a wide shelf of rock jutting out of the mountain with absolutely no transport in sight, dawn a faint grey on the horizon. Kashaw is tired enough he could probably sleep standing up, but unfortunately they’re still in the middle of a crisis so it’ll have to wait.

He sets Vax down and checks him over again. The fever has returned despite stopping every six hours to readminister a hypo, and he’s started talking, mumbling things to himself, drifting in and out of consciousness. Kash checks his pulse. Thready. The transport better show up soon or they’re gonna be down an occupant.

“You can’t die,” he orders the man. “Not until I get to tell you I told you so.”

Vax mumbles his sister’s name. Kashaw squashes a flash of panic and fishes out the water, flask nearly empty. He coaxes the last little bit down Vax’s throat, wiping it away where it dribbles down his chin.

“I will find you in the afterlife to yell at you. Don’t think I won’t.”

His head lolls to the side. Kash idly reaches a hand out to steady him. Even with a black eye and burning up with fever, there’s something almost noble about him. Kash scowls.

“Keep fighting,” he says. “Come on, you’ve never backed down from a fight in your life.”

Vax shivers, a body-wracking shudder that can’t be good for his ribs, or the rest of him for that matter. Kash scans the sky, but there’s nothing but clouds rolling in and the grey-peach light of the approaching day. The wind picks up around them, catching at his hair and the loose end of the scarf where it’s come untucked around Vax’s chest.

“I’m from here, y’know,” he says to fill the silence, watching the skies. “Other hemisphere, but it’s the same all the way around. Just rock and wind. And the sea, sometimes. You really aren’t missing much.”

“Missing the silence,” Vax wheezes, and Kashaw’s gaze snaps down to meet Vax’s half-lidded eyes. “You talk a lot.”

“Shut up,” he says through the surge of relief so strong he could drown in it. Then Vax opens his mouth again Kash says, “No, I mean it, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“Sure thing, Doc.”

“You dumb asshole.”

Vax grins, and Kash has never been quite so glad to see that expression on the man’s face. “Takes one to know one.”

“I said shut up.”

Vax coughs, wet and wheezing, but follows his orders. It’s a nice change of pace, really.

How long they sit there Kash can’t tell––maybe minutes, maybe hours. You’d think it would be awful, sitting on a barren jut of rock and halfway to praying that someone will come rescue you, but it’s almost nice, actually. Vax lists against his side, too weak to sit up by himself, and Kashaw can’t quite bring himself to mind.

Also makes it easier to feel the trembling each time he breathes, which is much less nice and much more worrisome, but that’s missing the point.

Finally, though, something glints near the horizon. Their shuttle.

Kash watches it approach, buffeted by the planet’s winds, and only when it is large enough to make out the make number painted on the side––USS Vox Machina NCC-1908––does he nudge Vax.

“Our ride’s here.”

“Just as I was getting used to the view.”

“What view,” snorts Kash, but he’s sort of right. The plateau falls away not fifty yards away, and the wide, low plain stretches for miles and miles, spread below them and limned in pink-orange light as the system’s central star touches the horizon. A deadly desert, nothing but wind and dirt and stone for hundreds of thousands of miles. It’s kinda impressive. Nice reminder of how small they all are, how big the universe is. That there’s something bigger than all of them out there.

“You grew up here, huh?”

Kash shrugs and helps him to his feet. Vax leans against him, breathing hard. “More or less.”

“Explains a lot.”

“I thought I told you to stop talking.”

“I don’t listen very well.”

“Clearly.”

Vax grins, half a wince, and the transport roars overhead, settling in a cloud of dust and dirt, and when everything settles Pike stands in front of them, worry painted clear across her face.

“Hey, Doc,” she says. “Need a hand?”

“Could use one, yeah,” Kash says, dragging Vax’s arm over his shoulder to help him limp up the ramp. Vax hisses every step of the way.

Only when he’s strapped down to the bed in the back of the transport do they take off again, whole ship rocking in the wind, and Kashaw braces a hand against the bulkhead and is glad he hasn’t eaten anything in the past twenty-four hours cause it would be all over the floor of the transport by now. Then they level out, punching through the atmosphere and back into the blessed vacuum of space.

“Glad to see you in one piece,” says Percy in the pilot’s seat. “Relatively.”

“He’ll be alright,” Pike replies. Kash snorts.

“When he gets better, I’m gonna strangle him.”

“Fair,” Percy nods, and Pike laughs as she hands Kash the tricorder, and then all conversation fades away while they focus on their patient, dancing around each other as they do their best to get him stabilized. Vax passes out again before they reach the ship.

* * *

Six hours later finds Kash dozing next to the cot, Vax hooked in to all sort of machinery and monitors and a concoction of antibiotics and sedatives and painkillers swimming around his system. Kash is well on his way to joining the man in sweet, sweet unconciousness when the pitch of the machines change, beeping speeding up, and he jolts awake half in panic before he realizes it’s just Vax waking up. The first officer stares at him, blinking slow and heavy. 

Kash scowls.

“You’re lucky you’re alive,” he says bluntly. Vax stares for a moment, then grins, slow and droopy. Which is understandable, given the drugs in him right now.

“You do care,” he says, all pleased and honest, and Kashaw can feel his ears growing hot.

“It’s my job,” he says.

“Yeah, but you care.”

“Vax––”

“’S okay,” he mumbles. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Protecting my reputation?”

“Yup.”

He’s just so blisteringly honest about it, like he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Kash shakes his head, almost fond, damn him.

“Or it could be for blackmail,” Vax considers, and ah, yes, that’s more like it. Though Kash is kind of impressed he has the presence of mind to consider it at the moment.

“I know where you sleep and I  _will_  kill you.”

“You softie you.”

“Go back to sleep, Vax,” sighs Kash. Vax closes his eyes. He’s quite handsome like this, Kash thinks, with some color back in his face, happy.

And blessedly silent.

Kash double checks his vitals––fine, perfectly where they should be––and drags himself out of the chair at Vax’s bedside. He’s got work he should be doing, now that Vax is out of immediate danger. CMO can’t just drop everything and play nursemaid for one bad decision maker.

“Kash.”

He stops short, turns back to Vax. The man’s eyes are still closed, but––

“Thank you. For everything.”

 _You’re awful_ , he means to say, but what comes out is, “You’re welcome.”

Vax smiles, and his breathing steadies as he falls asleep again. Kash drags himself back to his office where he sits with his head in his hands and wonders what, exactly, he’s getting himself into and why, exactly, he can’t bring himself to care.

So, really it’s just another day on the Vox Machina. No change there.


End file.
